‘Don’t like pilchards, Chief?’
Teasdale told McKendrick, ‘Doesn’t like soya links either.’
‘Extraordinary how many of both he still manages to put away, isn’t it?’
‘Scared someone else might get ’em, if he left any.’
‘Ah, yes. Deprived childhood, you know…’
Chief, munching, looked at McKendrick. ‘I know a child who’ll be deprived of something he values highly, if he doesn’t button his bloody lip.’
Teasdale’s reading matter on this patrol was Dylan Thomas’ Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. He hadn’t been doing as much scribbling lately. Bennett was reading The Last Tycoon, by Scott Fitzgerald, while McKendrick had tried to disguise with a piece of old chart for a cover a very badly printed pornographic work of fiction which he said was an Egyptian crib of No Orchids for Miss Blandish. Forbes had opened it at random and read a few lines, then shown it to Mitcheson. ‘Don’t recall Miss Blandish doing anything quite like this, do you, sir?’ Then – on a doubletake – ‘My God, she can’t even spell it!’
Mitcheson had Brighton Rock. Lucia had bought it for him in the Rue Fouad a few days before they’d sailed. He read for a while after lunch, then fell asleep, was woken by Teasdale who’d spotted a convoy of schooners heading down-coast off Saros. In present circumstances they weren’t worth bothering about, and he told Teasdale to turn back into the middle of the strait. It was about three o’clock, and it would be dark soon after six. He returned to his bunk, had only read a few lines before Teasdale summoned him again: this time it was for two Savoia Marchettis bumbling around out in the middle where Spartan was now heading.
The rough sea had something to be said for it: a periscope would take a lot of spotting, in all that white stuff. He stayed on his feet now, in and out of the control room, and at the chart. Experience had shown that Savoias patrolling in narrows or port approaches usually presaged the arrival of some worthwhile target. A pig-carrier fresh from an assault on Alexandria, for instance.
* * *
‘Up periscope.’
Two minutes to six. Light fading, no aircraft in sight now – not for the past hour – but two destroyers – coming south through the strait with their Asdics probing. One roughly ahead on about 060, and the other on the quarter, true bearing 300 or thereabouts. Both of them pinging, and making no more than six or seven knots – not on passage through this strait, therefore, but searching. Except it could have been their best speed in this weather, he supposed. Although they were abeam of each other, more or less, giving it the look of a search… Their Asdic transmissions were all that Rowntree was getting through his headphones, anyway, and conditions wouldn’t be any better for the Italian operators than they were for him.
He’d made one complete circle with the periscope; now had it trained on the mast and foretop of the one who was a few degrees off Spartan’s port bow. The Italian’s course was about – 160, he reckoned. He had the ’scope on him in high power, and as the destroyer lifted on a wave it was in full view for two or three seconds. One of the tiddlers: small, single-funnelled destroyers which the Italians listed as torpedo-boats. Partenope class, it might be: but there were others very similar. Black cowl on the funnel… Swinging left, down the port side, he stopped on about red one-two-oh. This was another of the same class. Forepart stuck into a lot of sea at the moment, a mound of white water piling aft, bursting around her bridge. They wouldn’t be enjoying it: wouldn’t be here for fun…
‘Down.’ E.R.A. Halliday depressed the lever, sent the brass tube streaking down.
‘Forty feet. Port ten.’
‘Forty feet, sir.’
‘Ten of port wheel on, sir.’
‘Steer oh-two-oh.’
Steering to pass between them and move out into the northern approaches to the strait. As long as they held on more or less as they were going… Component parts of the immediate problem were that in order to comply with S.(1)’s signal one needed to stay in or close to these narrows, but also, with darkness coming soon, to be well enough clear of these two to be able to surface. As it happened the battery wasn’t in too bad a state – after a quiet day with no great demands having been made on it – but it still needed at least a few hours’ charging between now and tomorrow’s dawn. One needed some clean air in the boat, too. A third good reason for getting up there now was to have some chance of (a) seeing, and (b) attacking, whatever those destroyers were clearing the way for.
He told O.D. ‘Scouse’ Cooper – who in this watch was keeping the control room log and manning the telephone between compartments – ‘Tell the motor room, orders by telephone now.’
Because the telegraphs were noisy, and one was not out to attract attention.
‘Course oh-two-oh, sir.’
Mitcheson glanced at Rowntree. ‘Relative bearings now?’
‘Red one-seven-oh, sir. And – green five-oh.’
Needles were steadying on forty feet.
You could forget the one that was now more or less astern. As long as it held on southward. The other, too, really – as long as it kept going as it was. They’d be pinging thirty or forty degrees each side of their own line of advance, he guessed, and the range of possible contact would be more limited than usual. Touch wood…
He’d surface, he thought, in about an hour’s time. Speed up a bit once he was sure they were out of acoustic range. Might be safe enough to do so now, but – belt and braces…
A glance at Rowntree: ‘Bearings now?’
* * *
Seven o’clock. At thirty feet and at diving stations, with the periscope up: circling slowly, peering into darkness flecked with white wavetops, white sheeting horizontally. Damn little chance of seeing anything at all, unless it was very close.
Nothing on Asdics either. The squeaks those torpedo-boats had been emitting had faded astern half an hour ago.
He pushed the handles up. ‘Stand by to surface.’
Forbes repeated the order, and reports began to come in: main vents checked shut, blows open…
Familiar litany, familiar faces all around him. Forbes, C.RO. Willis, Lockwood’s stolid bulk, Halliday’s thoughtful watchfulness. Tremlett, the signalman, already dressed for the bridge, on the ladder pushing up the lower lid. Teasdale was dressed ready for it too. Mitcheson took his own Ursula jacket from him. He already had the waterproof trousers on so-called waterproof – and a towel loose around his neck which he arranged now inside the neck of the jacket before pulling its hood up and tightening the drawstrings. They were called Ursulas because they’d been invented in the submarine Ursula, first of the U-class – the type which comprised the Malta flotilla. It was the best kind of protective clothing you could get, but in this weather nothing on earth would keep you dry for long.
‘Ready to surface, sir.’
He put one foot on the ladder. Glancing behind him at Rowntree: ‘Anything?’ Rowntree’s headshake and his expression told him not only that there wasn’t, but that you couldn’t hope there would be. He started up the ladder. ‘Surface!’
‘Blow one, three and five!’
Halliday twists the blows open, and high-pressure air thuds through pipes into the tops of those three tanks. Tremlett has gone up the ladder behind Mitcheson, and Teasdale starts up below him. Teasdale’s booted legs static now in the lower hatch. Forbes, at the foot of the ladder and with his eyes on the needle gaining speed around the gauge, calls the depths up to Mitcheson: ‘Twenty-five feet! Twenty! Fifteen! Ten feet! Five—’
Up there, the top hatch clangs back. Below, there’s a sudden release of pressure, men swallow to clear their ears. Mitcheson will be out in the streaming bridge by now, the others following him. His first action will be to open the voicepipe cock: Tremlett and Teasdale, crowding up behind him, will have binoculars up to search the night around them – the glasses might stay dry enough to be of use for as long as half a minute.
‘Control room!’ Disembodied voice – Mitcheson’s – in th
e copper tube. ‘In both engine clutches, half ahead together!’
The helmsman’s repeating it. Forbes tells Halliday: ‘Stop blowing.’ Then into the Tannoy: ‘Open all LP master blows. Start the blower.’ In only semi-buoyancy at this stage she’s fairly crashing around, throwing herself from beam to beam. The diesels rumble into action, there’s a rush of cold night air down through the tower, and matches rasp in all the boat’s compartments to light cigarettes and pipes, first of the day. Back aft meanwhile the blower’s running, low-pressure air completing the emptying of the main ballast tanks; also the compressor – in the after ends – recharging the bottles with high-pressure air that’s been used in blowing her to the surface.
‘Control room!’
‘Control room…’
‘When the signalman’s down, send lookouts up.’
* * *
From Spartan’s log, 20 December:
1940 Dived on klaxon to fifty feet in DR position 35 57’ N. 27 24’ E.
1942 Destroyer passed over S. to N., transmitting.
1942 Second destroyer, also transmitting.
1953 Surfaced. Standing charge stbd, 300 revs port, course 340.
It was the port side lookout, Torpedoman Drake, who picked up the bow-on shape of the leading Italian. Mitcheson was still on the bridge with Teasdale then, and he’s up there again now – has been for something like an hour and a half – two hours, maybe – still wondering whether there might have been a chariot-carrying submarine in company with those destroyers.
If so, they’ve done their job, got it through this strait. But the two ships weren’t in the kind of formation you’d expect if they were escorting something.
So what the hell were they doing?
Spitting salt water down-wind… He’s staying up here not because he lacks faith in his watchkeepers, but because in the circumstances and conditions generally it’s where he feels he has to be. Something does seem to be going on; there’s still supposed to be a chariot-carrier coming from the south, and in this kind of weather anything that does show up is likely to do so at close quarters.
* * *
Currie was at Ras el-Tin by ten-twenty and in Henderson’s office soon after half-past. Dewar was there, but there was no-one in the outer office. No sign of Glover, either.
‘So what are you doing now?’
Henderson shrugged. ‘Police have been alerted – had been before, obviously, but now they’re being told one fugitive is female. And Glover and his people—’
‘Fat lot of use they are!’
Henderson glowered at him. Dewar broke in: ‘Might be helpful if we calmed down – used our brains—’
‘Didn’t you say Lucia’s safety would be – quote – paramount?’
‘I’m most conscious of it. If it’s any help I’ll add I’m more sorry than I can say. All I’d say for Glover is he wouldn’t have been expecting them to’ve laid plans to make a monkey of him. Had ’em in his sights – thought he did – and followed ’em.’ The soldier shook his grey head. ‘Waste of time recriminating. Really, it is. Later – if you want… But to get this over too, we’ve been told there are no small ships available for patrol or interception – even if we could tell ’em where, or when—’
‘And no hope of any R.A.F. assistance.’
A gesture… ‘They don’t have any—’
‘We do, though. We have a Walrus in its hangar on QE. Valiant, ditto – more than one, in fact.’
‘Well—’
‘Whether either would be available or airworthy I’ve no idea. We can find out, obviously. First thing is – what you said, where and when. For instance, as far as my thinking’s gone, in the past hour or so – they wouldn’t have arranged a rendezvous to take place at night, surely. Small boat looking for submarine – or vice-versa – in pitch darkness?’
Dewar nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘Another thing.’ He’d done most of his thinking in the boat, in the twenty-minute trip across the harbour from QE. ‘These other Wops – the decoys your genius jumped on on the beach – they’d led him to Mex. Westward – and their object was to give Lucia’s brother a clear run. So the crucial direction must be east – uh?’
Henderson nodded. ‘I’ll tell you where, too.’ Addressing Dewar… ‘Rosetta. This last pair we’ve got hold of were only five or six miles from there. Inland, for some reason, on the delta, but the police say they’d spent a night at some small hotel in Rosetta. Incidentally we’ve traced some sterling fivers they’d changed – here, in town – had a job doing it, apparently, must’ve held ’em up for a while—’
‘If they were at Rosetta and that’s where we think they’d have left from, why would they have trekked five miles inland?’
‘I don’t know. But what if they had time to kill – waiting for the others, for instance. They’d have had no way of knowing their chums had been caught, would they.’
‘All right.’ Currie nodded. ‘And they might have guessed the police along the coast would have been alerted.’
‘They almost certainly knew it. Police called at the hotel where they were, apparently – weren’t told about them there and then, for some as yet unexplained reason—’
‘That’s it, then.’
Dewar agreed. ‘Rosetta’d make sense, all right. In fact it’s obvious, when you think about it. Anywhere short of Aboukir Point’d be too close to this town – not to mention the Army base out that way – and then you’ve got the bay, haven’t you. You wouldn’t push off from there if you needed to get any distance out to sea, would you, you’d be adding quite unnecessarily to the distance you’ve got to row. Or sail, or motor – eh? But Rosetta itself – the promontory, and a fishing base—’
‘So let’s think about timing.’ Currie had already thought about it, and the logic seemed fairly simple. ‘I’d put my money on dawn, first light. Giving them all night to pinch a boat and – get out to sea. You’d need a few hours, wouldn’t you, and I doubt if they’d do it in daylight. What’s more, I can’t imagine a submarine coming in so close that it couldn’t dive if it needed to. That’s a very flat, low-lying coast, you can bet the shallows go way out.’
‘Don’t need to bet.’ Henderson pushed himself up. ‘Chart here somewhere.’
‘I’d guess at least five miles offshore. Lot of wind tonight, incidentally. Northerly, at that. They’d need a boat with an engine, surely.’
‘Here we are.’ Henderson spread the chart out, and peered at the soundings… ‘Yes. Yes, indeed. Look at that. Cigarette?’
‘Thanks.’ Peace-offering, Currie thought. ‘Ten miles out, eh?’
Dewar asked them. ‘What depth of sea does a submarine need to dive in?’
‘Depends on the submarine, I imagine.’
‘Why not telephone the S.O.(O.) in Medway. Or any submarine C.O. who’s there. Ask that question, also whether if he was in an Italian C.O.’s boots he’d go for a first-light rendezvous, or what. We could be wrong there, they might prefer dusk, for instance. And it’s vital, isn’t it?’
‘All right.’ Henderson put his hand on the telephone: then changed his mind, found the dockyard telephone directory. ‘Right away. Right away.’
Dewar asked Currie: ‘This aircraft you mentioned?’
‘Called a Walrus. Colloquially, a Shagbat. Biplane with a pusher propeller, flying-boat hull but wheels too – retractable. It’s an amphibian, in fact. Funny-looking object. But whether either QE or Valiant is in shape to launch one—’
‘Launch, like—’ the soldier moved his hands in a launching movement – ‘off a catapult?’
He nodded. ‘Either that, or a crane puts it in the water and it takes off like any other flying boat.’
‘Should be possible, shouldn’t it?’
‘If either of them’s fit to fly – and their pilots are around, and – hang on, let’s hear this…’
Henderson was through to Medway, asking for the Staff Officer (Operations).
* * *
Starbo
ard bow – about green two-oh – in profile, steaming from left to right – destroyer…
Standing on her tail at this moment, in the circle of his binoculars - which he’s just dried for about the thousandth time. Spartan plunging, head to sea and rolling too. Mitcheson jammed into the bridge’s starboard for’ard corner, hearing Forbes’ shout: ‘Green two-five, sir—’
‘Yes, I’m on it!’
Into the voicepipe – a knees-bend to bring his wet face to its copper rim: ‘Control room. Come thirty degrees to starboard. Diving stations.’
Echoes of that from below. Where they’ve rigged the ‘birdbath’, a tubular canvas tent lashed to the deckhead around the ladder to contain however much sea comes down through the tower. Her roll will increase now as she turns away from the gale, turning end on to the Italian: one of that same pair, presumably – but southbound again, coming back…
End-on, Spartan’s visible shape to him won’t be any bigger than a beer-barrel. To all intents and purposes, she’s invisible.
Well – should be.
‘Second one – seventy on the bow!’
There…
So what’ll be coming along astern of them?
‘Course oh-one-oh, sir—’
‘Steer oh-two-five.’
No pig ever rolled like this – except possibly in death-throes. A pile of black water crashing over from the port bow, exploding black and white on and into the bridge. Wet glasses can be better than none: at a time like this you find that out. Mitcheson has a pocketful of periscope-paper – absorbent tissue – for drying the lenses, but that’s mostly sodden too now. He yells to Forbes: ‘Stay on those two, don’t lose ’em, just—’ another heavy one thundering over – ‘stay on them!’
While he searches the darkness astern of them… Thinking – as far as there’s time for thought – that they could have been just using up time with that earlier sweep: turned back north then to meet whatever they’re bringing through now… Or – if the chariot-carrier’s been delayed by this weather, they could be heading south again now to make a postponed rendezvous with it.
Love For An Enemy Page 40
